


Five Times Diana Brought Steve Home from the Hospital

by redjacket



Series: when we were almost young [4]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 04:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15622389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redjacket/pseuds/redjacket
Summary: Five Times Diana Brought Steve Home from the Hospital (and One Time he Joined her There)





	Five Times Diana Brought Steve Home from the Hospital

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day five of the [Wondertrev Love Week, prompt: five time.](https://wondertrevnet.tumblr.com/post/175651939595/wondertrev-love-week-2018-4-11-august) Set in the _Kind Old Sun_ universe.

 

_ One _

 

Steve was insensible when he left the hospital in Belgium, transferred to a hospital ship bound for England. 

The doctor had ordered him to be heavily doused with morphine. To make the journey more comfortable, Diana was told. 

Sameer and Charlie did not express concern about it, if anything, they seemed relieved, but Napi came to Diana and told her, quietly: “That much morphine can kill a man.” 

Later, when Steve was ensconced in a veteran’s hospital outside London, Napi added, sadly: “They may have thought they were doing him a kindness. Or it may have been just to ease his journey. We can’t know for sure.”

Diana refused to leave Steve’s side for the rest of the trip. She watched the doctors warily as they whispered to each other and glared at her for having the audacity to challenge them. 

Steve didn’t wake at all while they were on the ship. His breathing slowed back to the rasp it had been when they first found him. 

He had been improving. Slowly. But he had been improving. 

It felt like all of that was being undone. 

But Steve was the most stubborn of men, Diana knew. 

She would not leave him, Diana thought, holding his limp hand in both of hers, and he would keep breathing. 

She would accept nothing else. 

 

_ Two  _

 

No one would pronounce Steve well. He was not well, not really. He would begin to recover and then there would be a set back, a cold, a flu, something that irritated his lungs, and he would sink back down into a state that left blood on his pillows and the doctors talking in hushed tones above his bed as they waited for him to die.

But Steve did not die. He recovered, day by day, until the years passed and the setbacks came less and less. 

The doctors did not know what to do, nor were they inclined to waste time and resources on him.

Diana thought they would have preferred it if Steve were one of the legions of former soldiers who quietly coughed themselves to death in the years after the war. Steve spoke of it sometimes, the long nights of listening to someone’s rasping breath slow and then stop.

There was nothing the doctors could do for them and their scarred lungs. Over time, the veteran’s wards had begun to shrink and then close as former soldiers died or were discharged.

There was nothing they could do for Steve, either. But he did not die and was not well enough to be discharged, so they shuffled him from hospital to hospital. 

None of them, so far, had inquired as to what Steve or Diana wanted. 

Diana hardly thought she could be blamed for taking matters into her own hands. 

She arrived later than usual one morning and exchanged her regular, mutually distrustful look with the main doctor on the ward. The nurses were more sympathetic  — Charlie’s sister, Elsie, was among their number, and she had converted them to their cause. 

Diana and Elsie exchanged a nod as she walked past the nurses’ station. The head nurse raised an eyebrow at the two of them. One of the younger ones stifled a giggle but was quickly hushed. 

Steve was already in his wheelchair. He looked pale and he was too thin. He had done better in the hospital near Brighton. He had lost ground since they transferred him to this hospital. 

It was what finally decided Diana. 

Still, Steve smiled when he saw her. It was not the same smile except that it remained full of love, and even if she had wanted to, Diana would not have been able to resist leaning down to kiss him. 

“You’re late today,” Steve remarked. “Everything all right?” 

“Very much so,” Diana told him. She leaned close to his ear. “We are waiting for him to leave for lunch.”

Steve’s eyes lit up. “Today?”

“Charlie is waiting with the car,” Diana told him. “Nurse Wilcox has the paperwork finished. Didn’t you wonder why your things were packed?” 

“I thought they were planning to transfer me again. It’s not like I ever get much advance warning,” Steve took her hand. His smile grew so wide it tugged at his scars. “I love you.” 

Diana could not help it, she kissed him again. She sat with him, waiting, their fingers entwined, as the doctor checked another patient’s chart.

“Could he spend anymore time dawdling?” Steve groused. Diana thought if he was not such a well trained spy, he would be vibrating with excitement. 

He was speaking too loudly as it was.

“Shh,” Diana whispered, squeezing his hand. “You’ll give the game away.”

“That old fart never — ” Steve began and then stopped abruptly as “that old fart” looked in their direction. They ducked their heads together as he frowned at them. 

Steve giggled, then clamped his hand over his mouth. Diana tried to shush him again but ended up giggling herself. 

Dr. Old Fart frowned, shook his head at them, and left the ward. 

They waited a five minutes, then ten. Diana let go of Steve’s hand to walk to the end of the ward and peer down the hallway. 

Elsie appeared at the end, leaning out from the nurses station, and gave her the all clear sign.

Diana hurried back to Steve. “He’s gone.”

Steve grabbed her hand before she could take hold of his wheelchair and kissed it. “Thank you.”

Diana kissed his cheek. She should have done this months, if not years, ago. 

They left the hospital with deliberate speed  — Steve waved as she wheeled him past the nurses  — the youngest clapped and waved back and Diana thought she saw the hint of a grin on the head nurse’s face. Charlie honked and started waving his cap at them as soon as they were out the front door. It lost them their stealth but it made Steve laugh so hard he started to cough  — Diana saw Charlie’s face fall in worry and thought for a moment the whole thing might come undone  — but Steve had it under control in the next minute and when he pulled his handkerchief away, there was no blood spotting the fabric. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said dismissively, his voice rough but steady. “Get me out of here.” 

Diana helped him into the back seat of the car. She left the wheelchair where it was. They had everything they needed set up at home.

Home. 

Steve hadn’t even seen it yet, the house Etta had arranged for them. 

Diana had just gotten Steve settled when Elsie marched out with the head nurse carrying Steve’s small suitcase. Charlie jumped out to take it and put it in the boot.

“Your discharge papers, Mr. Trevor. If you’ll just sign here,” the head nurse told them, passing Steve a pen.

“Oi, brother!” Elsie demanded.

“What?” Charlie demanded back. 

Elsie gestured between them. Charlie rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath at her but bent down so Steve could use his back as a desk to sign the papers.

Steve grinned. “Thanks, Charlie. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Charlie grumbled but he looked very pleased with himself. “Let’s get a move on.”

Steve signed with more of a flourish than was necessary, removing himself from care. 

The “escape” was not actually necessary. Diana and Etta had made sure Steve was within his rights to discharge himself. They had set everything up with the utmost care beforehand. 

But Diana knew Steve worried about being a burden to her. Leaving like this allowed him less time to dwell on that. 

Charlie started to straighten up but Elsie cleared her throat. 

“What now?” Charlie complained. 

The head nurse was already passing Elsie another set of papers. Steve handed over the pen. “My resignation.” 

Charlie groaned but stayed put. Elsie signed her own papers, capped the pen and handed it back to the head nurse.

“You take care of him now,” she instructed Elsie.

“Yes, mum,” Elsie agreed. 

She looked at Steve. Steve eyes were wet. “Thank you.”

She nodded once, commanding: “I don’t want to see you back here, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said. 

She shook his hand before turning and briskly pushing the wheelchair back up the path. 

Elsie climbed into the front seat and closed the car door firmly. Charlie scrambled after her.

“Right,” he said, shutting his own door and starting the car. He grinned in the rear view mirror and winked at Diana. “Where to?”

Diana smiled and squeezed Steve’s hand. “Home.” 

 

_ Three _

 

“Do you remember when you broke me out of the hospital?”

Diana looked at Steve, at his drawn face and distant eyes. They were sitting outside, despite the greyness of the day, taking what little respite could be found in the hospital garden. 

It felt like a lifetime ago, when she had planned that escape and taken him home. 

“Yes,” Diana answered. 

They had had three months. Three months and while they could not say Steve’s health had not taken up and down swings, he had been happier, he had started walking around the house with his cane and cooking again, talking of the future. 

Then something had gone wrong with his hip. Diana had heard a crash and found him collapsed on the kitchen floor. He had been in such pain.

She had to take him to the nearest hospital. She had to.

The doctors there had been more interested in his case than the others had been. Steve  _ wasn’t  _ dying. The other men with lungs as poor as his were. 

They did not want him to leave. They made excuses, first a surgery on his hip, then they offered plastic surgery to restore more functionality to his mouth and reduce the severity of some of his scarring.

It had been a struggle for him, but Steve had ultimately agreed.  

Only now he had recovered, as much as he ever would, and they still did not want to let him leave.

It had been two and a half years since he had been home. 

Steve was resilient, more so than most, but it was starting to break him. Diana could see it in his eyes and in the still way he held himself, like a caged animal waiting for its first chance to break free. 

He took a breath, squinting at the sunless sky. Diana twined her fingers with hers. Her heart felt like it was in her throat. She knew how difficult it was for him to ask anything for himself, knew how he wrestled with feeling like a burden to her. She suddenly knew what he was going to say and wanted to spare him that. 

But Steve was no coward. He spoke first: “I think I need you to do it again.”

Diana’s heart ached. She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed the back of it gently. 

“Of course, beloved,” she promised him.

It took longer, this time, but where Diana could not physically tear Steve away, Etta was ready to marshal an army or pull all the strings at her disposal to bring him home.

It still took a month before Diana was helping Steve through the door of their house. 

Tomorrow, she was sure Etta and Sameer and Charlie and Napi would be at their door, eager to see Steve back home. He would smile for them and pretend everything was fine, now that he had been released.

Tonight, he hid nothing from Diana. His eyes were bruised with exhaustion and he seemed worn to the bone. 

Diana helped him undress and, though it was still early afternoon, curled into bed with him. Steve could not seem to get close enough. Diana held him as tightly as she dared, given how thin he had gone.

Steve sighed. He sounded as if he had been waiting for months to exhale. 

“I am never going back there,” Steve swore, quietly but vehemently.

Diana knew she would do everything in her power to prove that oath true.

 

_ Four _

__

Diana ran ahead to get the door. Steve was walking slowly down the hallway with the aid of a walker, Maryam hovering anxiously behind him. 

Diana recognized the hints of strain on his face but they were overwhelmed by just how pleased he looked with himself. 

Steve was beaming. There was no other way to describe it. 

Diana held the door open for him, smiling as he passed by. His grin was infectious. 

“Thanks, love,” Steve said. “First time I’ve done that under my own power.”

“No it’s not,” Maryam muttered from behind him. 

Steve sighed in fond exasperation. “Kiddo...”

“I’m just saying, you walked in and out of hospitals  _ on your own  _ to visit me and visit Dad and Aunt Anne and everyone else and you’ve been walking in and out of my office by yourself for over a year,” Maryam said, stubbornly. 

“Maryam,” Steve said, firmly. “Come here.” 

“I am here,” Maryam muttered but she sidled up so she was standing in front of him instead of fidgeting behind. 

Steve kissed her forehead. 

“I’m fine,” he told her. “Stop worrying.”

“You would say you were fine if you were on death’s doorstep!” Maryam complained.

“He has,” Diana confirmed. 

Steve snorted and maneuvered by both them. “I’m going to the couch.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to —” Maryam began, clearly ready to advise Steve to go lay down in bed immediately. 

“Nope,” Steve said, already on his way down the hall.“Couch.”

“I discharged you early, you know!” Maryam called after him.

Diana smothered a laugh. Maryam scowled and attempted to run a hand through her mass of hair. 

“Think we distracted him enough?” Maryam asked, as if she wasn’t particularly humming with nervous energy herself. 

“He didn’t need it,” Diana told her. Her heart felt light. She had not thought this was a thing that would change. 

“And he’s really fine,” Maryam pressed, sounding almost sure. Steve could be obfuscating and Maryam was bad at reading people and neither of them ever wanted to show the other that they were struggling but they had become more honest with each other since they began to plan the surgery.  

But Maryam still sometimes looked to Diana as the ultimate gauge of how Steve was doing. 

They deserved each other, Steve and this favourite niece of theirs. 

“He’s better than he has been for a long time,” Diana told her. 

There was still recovery time in front of him, yes, but they had been through that many times before. This time he wouldn’t have to go through it again in another six months when he slipped or put a foot wrong for a moment and his hip dislocated. 

With any luck, he would never have to go through that again. 

 

_ Five _

 

Diana was striding into the hospital, her phone to her ear, when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

It was Steve. He was grinning. Before she could ask, he held up a bouquet of flowers.

Diana smiled. “I’ll call you back, Leila.”

She hung up the phone: “What’s this?” 

“Raided the gift shop,” Steve said. “You’re not supposed to buy flowers for patients anymore anyway.”

“No?” Diana asked, smelling them. They were not the best flowers, they never were when they came from a hospital gift shop. They still made her smile widen, her heart exceedingly full of love. 

“Allergies,” Steve said knowingly and kissed her on the cheek.

“Ah,” Diana said. She kissed him properly. Steve still sighed against her lips as if it were the first time. His eyes were soft when they parted. “Shall we go in?”

“No need,” Steve told her. “Maryam had a priority consult across town. She bumped my appointment up. I’m already done.”

Diana felt almost giddy. Even a year before his hip replacement, Steve had had trouble setting foot inside the hospital without her and definitely wouldn’t have stayed inside voluntarily for one moment longer than he had to. 

“And?” She asked, tamping that feeling down. “What did she say?”

“Clean bill of health,” Steve told her with a careless shrug. “Or as close as I’m ever going to get.”

“We should celebrate,” Diana said, thinking of not only that, an outcome they couldn’t have dreamed of when Diana sat, clinging to Steve’s limp hand on the ship back to England, but of every moment it had taken to get them there. 

Steve’s smile was bright. “We should.”

“Dinner?” Diana suggested. 

His smile turned hungry and his eyes went hot. “I was thinking we could order in.” 

Steve offered her his arm. Diana took it, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. “That sounds like an excellent plan.”

They went home, together.

 

_ \+ One Time he Joined her There _

 

“Hey.”

Diana looked up to see Steve’s sympathetic face. 

“Steve,” she said surprised as he sat down in the uncomfortable hospital chair next to her and took her hand. 

“How’s he doing?” Steve asked, kissing her temple and then her hand, quick touches of comfort.

“We don’t know yet,” Diana said. “He’s alive. Clark is listening in —”

Superman, dressed in khakis and plaid shirt, gave then a brief, distracted smile before turned his head back in the direction of the operating room.

“Bruce is attempting to throw his money around —”

Diana saw Steve crane his neck back to see Batman in his sharpest business suit, leaning against the nurses’ station speaking with a hospital administrator. 

“And Vic is plugged into their systems somewhere,” she finished. They were getting periodic updates from him on their phones. 

Steve nodded, still squinting down the hallway at Bruce. “Sounds like you guys have everything covered.”

“Steve,” Diana said, still shocked by his presence. “How did you get here?”

Steve looked at her. “I drove.” 

“From New York?” Diana clarified. 

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I made your excuses at the conference. Said it was a family emergency.” 

Diana touched his cheek briefly. She loved this man, who would drive hours just to sit with her when one of her teammates was injured. Steve kissed her temple again and squeezed her hand.

“They know what they’re doing in there, right?” Steve asked. “With the, uh, everything?”

“Bruce gave them money until they brought in, hm,  _ specialists _ in to help. We wouldn’t let him buy the hospital,” Clark told him. He was smiling, he would only be smiling if —

“That would have been easier,” Bruce interrupted, grouchily, as he joined them. 

Diana ignored him. “Clark, do you —”

Her phone buzzed even as she was asking the question. It was Vic.

_ Out of surgery. Going to be fine. _

“Barry’s out of surgery,” Clark was telling them. “The doctors think he’ll make a full recovery.”

Diana exhaled. Steve rubbed her back. 

“Hey, that’s great,” Steve said, even as he looked around, his relieved smile beginning to droop into a frown. “Did anyone think to call —”

There was the sound of sneakers squeaking down the hallway and then Iris rushed past them, making a beeline for the nurses station. Diana had called her when they first arrived.  

Diana gave Steve’s hand a final squeeze and rose to go meet her. 


End file.
